In many environments, notably hospitals and other institutions, there is a great demand for removable record sheets. The record sheets and charts are generally preprinted and may include one or more mounting hole configurations to enable their use in a wide variety of binder arrangements such as top and side mounting binders. Typical loose leaf binder mounting arrangements include three and five holes. There are also two hole arrangements for use with traditional flat metal fasteners and European format binders.
Institutional records are subject to a lot of wear and tear, thus often requiring reinforcement. Currently, there are several devices available for reinforcing the mounting holes of removable record sheets. One commonly used reinforcement device consists of ring-shaped pieces of fabric or plastic, coated with adhesive on the mounting side, that are individually positioned around each mounting hole to strengthen the surrounding paper material. These rings are difficult to align around the mounting hole and readily fall off the paper surrounding the mounting hole. There are also specially manufactured reinforced loose leaf sheets having plastic material or metal joined along the mounting edge of the sheet and incorporating mounting holes therein. These special devices are very expensive, and consequently not widely used.
In addition, pressure sensitive reinforcement tape has been used for reinforcing loose leaf sheets. U.S. Pat. No. 4,662,770 to Block discloses a mounting hole reinforcement device having pre-punched mounting holes along a supporting edge. This reinforcement tape is dispensed on a backing paper strip which includes a non-stick surface to which the adhesive side of the individual pre-cut reinforcement tapes are removably adhered. The backing paper is necessary to prevent the adhesive side of the reinforcement tape from adhering to the non-adhesive side of the tape. The tapes and the backing paper are coiled into a roll and placed within a dispensing box through which one end of the roll emerges. If the reinforcement tape of the '770 patent is rolled without the backing paper, it cannot be dispensed without leaving a sticky residue on the non-adhesive side of the tape. In addition, removal of the backing paper from the reinforcement tape is difficult and time consuming. Also, the use of reinforcement tape having backing paper requires special dispensers. Further, a roll of reinforcement tape with backing paper is bulkier; consequently it is more difficult to package, store and use.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide an economical reinforcement device for loose leaf sheets which does not have a backing strip, is easy to apply, and remains affixed to the loose leaf sheets.
An additional object of the present invention is to provide a reinforcement device for loose leaf records which may be readily dispensed by conventional tape dispensing means.
A further object of the invention is to provide a backing-free reinforcement device for loose leaf records that will support the weight of the loose leaf binder without tearing the reinforcement device.